View the video version of this episode here.

In The Grain Feed, Jim Matthews is joined by a rotating cast of analysts to discuss what dairy and livestock producers can be doing to manage their risk. This week, Jim is joined by Jake Kingsley and Jenny Wackershauser.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2024, confidential and proprietary.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post The Grain Feed – January 8, 2025 (Audio Only) appeared first on .

In this week’s Parlor to Plate dairy podcast from Ever.Ag Insights, our expert panel breaks down the latest market dynamics and reports shaping the dairy and grain industries. How is 2025 starting for U.S. cheese exports? What trends are emerging in global butter imports and skim milk powder? And what surprises might Friday’s WASDE report hold for U.S. corn balance sheets?

Join host Katie Burgess and panelists Jon Spainhour, Matt Tranel, and Jake Kingsley for a spirited discussion.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

(Transcript auto-generated)

Future trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided in this segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities. Hello. Welcome to Parlor to Plate a weekly podcast from ever again sites dedicated to offering listeners enlightening discussion and actionable dairy market intelligence. I’m your host, Katie Burgess. We’re excited to have you along, and if you like the show, please subscribe and tell a friend or two.

00;00;24;26 – 00;00;47;01

To kick things off. Let’s timestamp the episode. It is about 2:00 central time on Wednesday, January 8th, and here’s the latest rundown of CME spot markets today. Block cheddar closed at one 91.5. That’s up half a cent from last week. Barrels finished at 187 per pound. That’s up $0.05. Water is at 260 per pound. Also up a nickel compared to a week ago.

00;00;47;02 – 00;01;11;03

And nonfat dry milk is at 137 per pound. Down half a cent. Turning to the grain markets. March corn is at 454 per bushel today, down $0.04 from last week. Well, March soybeans are at 9.93 per bushel, down $0.17 from a week ago. So with that, let’s get to the show. Joined today by another great panel. First off, joining us from Chicago, Mr. John Spindler, who works with commercial dairy customers.

00;01;11;07 – 00;01;22;16

Also Matt Tranel coming to us from Platteville, Wisconsin, where he works with dairy producers, and Jake Kingsley out of Kansas, who keeps a close eye on dairy feed prices. Hey, guys, happy new year.

00;01;22;17 – 00;01;24;12

Happy new year. Happy new year, Katie.

00;01;24;13 – 00;01;26;00

Happy new year and happy to be here.

00;01;26;01 – 00;01;43;10

First year from a market perspective, it was an active two weeks. We did take two weeks off of the podcast though, as people celebrated holidays with family and friends. And as we come back this week, there is a lot to catch up on. Earlier this week we had blocks up in the mid one 90s, a two month high.

00;01;43;11 – 00;02;02;02

Today butter got up to 260, the highest we’ve seen in eight weeks. Plus, to get things started this week we had a lot of reports. We had dairy products report Monday afternoon, GDP auction Tuesday morning. Fresh trade data out on Tuesday. So just lots of good stuff to help us kick off the new year, figure out where we’re going with these dairy markets.

00;02;02;05 – 00;02;08;16

So, Matt, let’s start with you. This cheese market has had some strength. What’s the latest there?

00;02;08;17 – 00;02;30;19

Yeah. You know, I think that we’ve seen some pretty decent cheese exports in the Q1 period of time. Get books. I think it’s kind of the old analogy that low prices cure low prices. When we did trade down into the one 6165 area, most of the world was considerably higher up into $2 to ten, maybe a little bit higher than that.

00;02;30;20 – 00;02;56;22

And as a result of the price difference, the United States was the place to go to pick up any export business that was available through the holiday season. We also saw some fairly decent domestic demand along with it. And so as results, we have watched kind of this cheese market snuck up a little bit, and traders have been aggressively trying to find the product not always readily available.

00;02;56;23 – 00;03;16;25

As we’ve approached this dollar area, it seems like, at least for the time being, that we are a little bit more in balance. We’ve also watched as a result of cheese moving up. We’ve watched the funds really start to less in a short position and start to build a little bit of a longer position, which has also assisted in taking class remote futures higher as well.

00;03;16;26 – 00;03;45;28

Speaking of exports and different reports, we did have the trade data come out for November here recently, and some of the highlights that we did see were again, a very strong number for cheese exports were up 2% from 2023, numbers at 87 million pounds. Mexico continues to pace everybody, taking on another 35 million pounds of our product. And looking year to date, the United States crossed the 1 billion pound for cheese exports.

00;03;45;28 – 00;04;05;03

So that was a very impressive number on the butter front. Exports were just under 7 million pounds with Canada taking most of our products. But when you look at the import part of butter, I thought it was interesting because we did import a record 23 million pounds, mostly coming from Ireland. So that was interesting piece on the butter report.

00;04;05;03 – 00;04;16;05

Powder shipments were very low, just 119 million pounds. That’s the lowest since August 2019. And way exports were fairly decent. So it’s kind of a brief rundown on that report.

00;04;16;08 – 00;04;33;04

Thanks for that, Matt. I mean, to your point, from a cheese export perspective, 2024 is going to go down in the books, most likely as a record year. From a butter import perspective. Apparently U.S. consumers cannot get enough of that. Irish butter likely goes down as a record import year for butter, so lots of interesting stuff in the trade data.

00;04;33;04 – 00;04;52;21

And exactly to your point, I think as I talked to customers about what are we watching here in 2025, the story is still probably all about what’s going to happen with these cheese exports. So thanks for the rundown there. And speaking of what’s going to happen in 2025 and looking at international markets, John, I know you watched that GDP auction very carefully out in New Zealand.

00;04;52;22 – 00;04;55;04

Can you give us the rundown of yesterday’s results?

00;04;55;06 – 00;05;27;07

You’re absolutely right, Katie. The GDP was yesterday watching it pretty closely here. I would just say on aggregate the GDP was down about 2.9 star performers of the day, where butter and cheese butter was up 2.8%, coming in around 309. Cheddar was up about 1% coming in around 214 and mozzarella up 3.4% coming in at $1.89. However, as we switched to the powder side of things, that’s where the downgrade on the overall aggregate result came.

00;05;27;08 – 00;05;53;09

Skim milk powder down 2.7%, coming in around 122 on the auction. There’s European powder that is for sale as well on there now, and we see that that’s trading in the 114 to 115 area as we go, where a whole milk powder came in 2.2% lower. And this is the second lower whole milk powder in a row. And I believe the third lower SMP result in a row on the GDP.

00;05;53;12 – 00;06;13;15

If we were to say what changed things in there, I would just say we’ve seen China be pretty active for several months of the year, year. And I think we saw them doing a little bit of restocking and a little bit of trade channel shuffling. We saw them buy More here on the GDP, but probably a little bit less from other areas, specifically the US, especially for SMP.

00;06;13;15 – 00;06;35;05

As Matt was pointing out there, exports were down relatively significantly for skim and nonfat dry milk powders. I think there’s two things to that are production was lower would be our price was higher. Right. We’ve been up in this 137 to 140 area during the time when the rest of the world has been at $1.25. And like I mentioned, Europe is now in the 115 area.

00;06;35;05 – 00;06;45;07

So part of it is we have less product to export. We’re probably not going to export because our price is so high right now. So those are kind of some of the things that we point out that happened on the.

00;06;45;07 – 00;07;04;23

GDP for sure. It’s I think very notable to see that historically, we don’t have big gaps in prices between global suppliers of powder prices for long, and the U.S. has been lowering quite a bit higher than the rest of the world. And so I think that the US market does have support to your point of making us here nervous about what’s happening in California.

00;07;04;23 – 00;07;11;13

But at the same point in time, the global market is going to continue to tug us lower. If possible, just because we’re not price competitive.

00;07;11;13 – 00;07;29;15

My general thought on that would just be that we can see California milk production was lower, right? We know that dairy products doesn’t quite state that total powder production was lower, but it was right. We know that for sure. You can’t have California milk production go down 10% and not affect powder production. So again, we didn’t have that much to export.

00;07;29;15 – 00;07;47;03

But if milk production comes back as bird flu passes through California, we see milk production come back. We’re probably going to have more powder to sell, and we’ll need to export that. And when we do, it’s going to probably have to go at those lower international price levels as opposed to our domestic price right now, for sure.

00;07;47;03 – 00;08;02;14

And I think that brings up another question that also heading into 2025, lots of questions about milk production. Where do we go with avian influenza? Do we have enough heifers out there to grow the herd? I know, Matt, you’re talking to producers from around the country. What’s the latest you’ve heard on the milk production front?

00;08;02;14 – 00;08;25;02

Yeah, I know when you’re talking with producers, a trip in Wisconsin here last week and a common theme was where’s all the milk going to come from? And ultimately it still shows outside of the holiday weeks that milk is very snug around the holidays. It still gets a little loose. But anybody that’s taking in milk that might not have maybe a load or, contract for that can pretty easily resell it at a premium in today’s market.

00;08;25;02 – 00;08;46;14

So I think that’s pretty common across most parts of the United States. I know it’s tight in California. It’s tight here in Wisconsin. I know there’s some buyers looking for milk down in the southern parts and the southern states as we fill these new cheese plants. From what I’m hearing, it’s still pretty snug. But as we move forward in 2025, it does still look like we’re moving towards a market that is expecting more milk than what we have here today.

00;08;46;15 – 00;09;04;19

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I’d say our average milk production model points to growth in 2025. It’s just these wild cards out there. Where do we go next? Are other areas impacted by avian influenza? You know, one of the reports that we look forward to all year is at the end of January, USDA gives us the latest data about how many heifers we’ll have in the year ahead.

00;09;04;19 – 00;09;19;11

So looking forward to that report when we get it in a few weeks. And speaking of other reports that will get here sooner rather than later. Jake, I don’t want to leave you out. We’ve got a ways to report this week to get the latest on the grain markets, and I know this January 1st can be a big one.

00;09;19;11 – 00;09;22;03

What are you guys watching for when those numbers drop on Friday?

00;09;22;03 – 00;09;47;28

Yeah, I think there’s a fair bit of anticipation around Friday’s report here. January typically is kind of the last call on this most recent crop year, as far as any adjustments USDA might make to yield or acreage. Any of those production numbers kind of get finalized here in January. And I think there are questions around what may happen to the corn balance sheets.

00;09;47;28 – 00;10;17;12

Specifically, we had a very sizable cut to ending stocks in December due to an increase in export and ethanol demand for corn. Now, the question is, is there another sizable adjustment coming? We’ve kind of continued to rally the futures curve, at least this old crop futures market. From that report up to this point now. So I think folks are expecting some sort of alteration to the balance sheet again this month potentially.

00;10;17;12 – 00;10;39;24

Maybe it comes by way of South America. They had a little bit of a dry spell there very briefly that kind of brought crop conditions down. Still very much at or above the five year average on crop conditions down there, and have a sizable production number still anticipated for their harvest in the next couple of months. But there have been a few tweaks here and there that have started to add up to smaller domestic and global balance sheets.

00;10;39;24 – 00;11;08;18

On the corn front. On the protein side, I think folks are maybe expecting a few less fireworks from the last year. The concern there continues to be around tariffs and Inauguration Day being less than two weeks out. At this point, the most obvious one for us to work on on the feed side is what do tariffs look like for Canada and all of the canola that comes south across that border, and to feed banks here in the US.

00;11;08;18 – 00;11;30;04

And who incurs that cost increase if it is to go into effect. So we’re watching that. We’ve seen canola markets kind of tighten up. And vendors being less interested in putting offers out there for the forward curve. Certainly more interest in looking at soybean meal, moving back into the ration in some markets where they are heavily favoring canola right now.

00;11;30;04 – 00;11;32;03

So a couple things to watch on that end.

00;11;32;03 – 00;11;41;27

So Jake thank you Canada. Also this week big political news there. Prime Minister Trudeau announcing that he’s going to step down. Does that impact the canola market or the markets in any.

00;11;41;27 – 00;12;00;16

Way I think so I think it’s hard to say exactly how that plays out in the long term. It really depends on who comes in there next. But what I do foresee happening is if you had Trudeau still in there, he and Trump had already had an initial discussion and were going back and forth a little bit about this tariff rhetoric with him stepping down.

00;12;00;16 – 00;12;22;04

I think that kind of leaves a void where whatever policies we implement day one or week one or however early in the Trump presidency, it will take a lot longer to resolve with unknown changes coming to Canadian leadership, there won’t be near as many opportunities for quick discussion.

00;12;22;08 – 00;12;45;17

It’s a good point, and I think we have, you know, corollaries in the dairy market as well of there’s a lot of moving pieces here in the market fundamentals themselves as we head into the new year. And then you add in the uncertainty around what’s going to happen with trade and tariffs and politics. Also, I guess just to mention potential port strikes, lots of things to be watching as we keep an eye on these markets here over the next really couple of months.

00;12;45;17 – 00;13;03;08

So we’ll see where it goes. But well, there are lots of questions to ask. We’ll have more podcasts coming to you as the year unfolds, so we’ll leave those questions for another day. I think that’s it for today. Big thanks to John. Jake and Matt. Appreciated the conversation today. Also big thanks to the Our Insights team. Thanks for your production support.

00;13;03;09 – 00;13;15;12

And of course, thank you to you, the listeners. We appreciate you tuning in. If you like the show, please hit subscribe. And if you’d like to learn more about how we help customers manage price risk, please contact us at [email protected].

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd

Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29

License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod

© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

The post Parlor to Plate – January 08, 2025 appeared first on .

Host Cody Koster and Jon Spainhour take a deep dive into this week’s GDT report.

Questions or comments? Contact Jon at [email protected], Cody at [email protected], or give us a call at (312) 492-4200.

(Transcript auto-generated)

Future trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided in this segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities.

00;00;08;27 – 00;00;17;06

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another GDC Tuesday. I am your host, Cody Koster, with me from Chicago, Mr. John Spain, our John, how are you doing in this new year?

00;00;17;06 – 00;00;24;27

I am doing well. Cody and I am so happy to be here once again. And happy New Year to you and to all of our listeners. We are happy to.

00;00;24;27 – 00;00;26;08

Have you back for the.

00;00;26;08 – 00;00;28;07

First GDP.

00;00;28;09 – 00;00;32;29

Of 2025. A little bit of a lower GDP coming in that negative two.

00;00;32;29 – 00;01;01;00

Point 9% as a whole for this round. You’re exactly right. Prices were lower here, 2.9% on the aggregate. You know some of the standout players here. Let’s start with the fat side. We’ll say that butter came in 2.8% higher coming in right around 3:09 a.m. came in 1.3% lower. How about 325 when we try to look at it through the fat lens, I would just say that those are one offset the other.

00;01;01;00 – 00;01;22;19

There. Right when we get to the cheese side though, cheddar was up 1%. And that’s going to come in about $2.14 on the cheddar side. Mozzarella though was up 3.4%. And kind of the star of the show here, however, only up to $1.89 as we move into the powder side. Here’s where a little bit more of a let down here.

00;01;22;19 – 00;01;46;11

Whole milk powder came in 2.2% lower. I would just say that yes, that was lower. But I also want to point out that came in higher than the last GDS pulse was suggesting we were going to come in at. And it also came in a little bit higher than where whole milk powder futures were pricing net. Since the last auction, which was three weeks ago, we’ve seen whole milk and skim milk powder futures really get decimated here.

00;01;46;11 – 00;02;09;13

So I think everyone was expecting that it was going to be lower. I would just say the whole milk powder overperformed a little bit when it comes to skim milk powder. Skim milk powder was down 2.7%. When we bring everything together here, I would just say that the GDC pulse was looking for down about 2.4% and some of the futures were actually looking for a little bit better price than that.

00;02;09;13 – 00;02;31;10

So I would say skim down 2.7%. And I would say that that fared a little bit worse than both the futures and the GDS pulse were suggesting out here. Overall, though, I guess it was kind of a doom and gloom feeling coming into this one from a lot of people. And I guess I would just say I don’t feel like the net result was doom and gloom.

00;02;31;10 – 00;02;49;23

I felt like, yes, we were lower, but it was kind of a better result than what I’m might have expected. Just hearing the rhetoric out there. I would also just want to point out that the skim milk powder futures and the settlement here for this auction, this is going to be the lowest result that we’ve seen since the middle of August.

00;02;49;23 – 00;03;06;10

So prices have kind of stepped back here on the skim milk powder. And when we get to whole milk powder, you know, we’re off our highs. But not by much. So a small decrease here in the last two auctions. And again, this whole milk powder result was better than what most people had anticipated.

00;03;06;13 – 00;03;16;17

I think one of the standouts on the higher side was butter, coming in at 2.8% higher on this auction, like a price of 309 for the average.

00;03;16;21 – 00;03;38;24

Yeah, it did okay, right. We have to acknowledge that that it did do okay for 309 up 2.8%. However, I just don’t know that it’s anything that’s like really changes the rhetoric when it comes to the fat market. I would just say that it is kind of in line with where the world fat market was. So but it is higher in the US and at the same point in time, lower than the EU price.

00;03;38;24 – 00;03;41;17

So New Zealand butter sitting right there in the middle.

00;03;41;22 – 00;03;52;17

And I know looking back John we’re talking about cheese I know cheese. Mozzarella came in 3.4% higher here in cheddar was 1% higher. But wasn’t it expecting a little bit lower of a trend on cheese for the average?

00;03;52;17 – 00;04;14;15

I would just say that the US price now right on mozzarella. At least we’re at one 9150 in blocks, right? That’s going to put us higher than the mozzarella price on the GTI and generally higher than the EU price of mozzarella. It looks to me, though that cheddar at 214, as we’re seeing here on the auction, is probably one of the higher cheese prices in the world.

00;04;14;16 – 00;04;30;28

Again, though, we have to be so careful or we’ve been kind of schooled to be so careful about the way that we compare these cheese prices specifically when it comes to cheddar. Nevertheless, cheese was higher, and higher is higher. The New Zealand cheddar price is the highest in the world right now, so something to be aware of.

00;04;31;02 – 00;04;33;23

Something to keep our eye on for sure. I’m moving.

00;04;33;23 – 00;04;35;09

To the.

00;04;35;09 – 00;04;52;01

Regions for buying. I mean, nothing stuck out as like a blinder in the face I guess on who was buying or who wasn’t. I mean, the Middle East was up 41% from last event three weeks ago, and North Asia was down 21%. But other than that, something that stuck out to you yourself majorly there.

00;04;52;02 – 00;05;13;04

You know, I think we’re just in terms of participation, as you pointed out, North Asia and or China down 21% on the event change from event to event, but again up 9% year over year. So I think the Chinese really step back on this auction versus what they have been doing here over the last three months, but they’re still, you know, 9% higher than the year before.

00;05;13;04 – 00;05;36;25

So pretty decent clip. It’s important to remember that we’re past the high tide, if you will, of New Zealand offers. And from here on out we likely see less volume than more. Right. So on this auction, there was 6% less volume than on the auction before. And that’s been moving progressively lower here. So here we are in a time when the offers are lighter and prices are going down, kind of convert to what we might think is going to happen.

00;05;36;25 – 00;05;57;01

But I guess I would just generally say it feels like buyers got what they needed and are stepping down their demands as the supply goes down. Or set another way, they time their demand to come in and pick up the most volume when the most volume was available and prices did go higher. But now, as volumes are going down, they’re stepping off a little bit here.

00;05;57;02 – 00;06;16;10

I think that kind of stands out to me. The Middle East, you know, as you pointed out, up 41%. There are a third biggest buyer on there. They were up 41% event to event, but down 13% year over year. So again they kind of come in and out of there. I just don’t know that there’s anything I can get that excited about as it comes to these volumes.

00;06;16;10 – 00;06;33;22

I think what we are seeing, though, is no China. It’s still just this wild card of, hey, are they here? Like in the way that we’ve seen them in the past? And if they’re going to, to buy, you know, a little bit more than they normally do on a year over year basis, then that’s supportive right to the marketplace.

00;06;33;22 – 00;06;58;01

But it just feels like it’s still one of those deals where it’s like, boy, they could continue to step away at any time. And you can see as they step down their volumes, prices come lower. So it’s still just a little bit iffy in my mind. I think Steve and the Fresh Agenda team have done such a nice job of watching China and explaining, hey, it feels like China is here, but it feels like maybe they shift some of their demand out of Europe, right?

00;06;58;01 – 00;07;17;18

And out of the US, and they’ve put it on New Zealand. So yes, they’re buying more on the GT from what we can tell from, you know, the imports that they haven’t really bought in more in the world so much as there’s a little bit of a channel switching, meaning instead of buying out Europe, they’re just buying a little bit more out of New Zealand and specifically buying it on the GTI.

00;07;17;22 – 00;07;20;19

So just a little bit of changing hands where the buying is coming from.

00;07;20;19 – 00;07;42;18

Essentially it feels like that. And at the same point in time, let’s just not ignore. They bought a lot, right. And prices went up correspondingly. One of the other things I would just point out here, as it relates to nonfat and skim, is probably our most relatable product out here. And that is that on the GDP, right. We showed there that the New Zealand price did okay, right.

00;07;42;18 – 00;08;02;14

Coming in at about a one 2121 area, maybe as high as 122. However, when we dig a little bit deeper into the auction results, we can see that there was some skim milk powder that came out of Europe that was put up here on the auction, and it comes out trading at about $1.15 a pound. Now, I don’t want to make too much out of that.

00;08;02;14 – 00;08;26;04

I don’t know that the GT is the most developed market and related to these other products, but I would just say it’s important to point out this is a $1.14 to a $1.15 trade. It was some U.S product that went up there and actually did trade on the auction today, and it came in at $1.17. The reason I bring this up is we also got our export report today for November.

00;08;26;04 – 00;08;45;29

And what we can see on there is in November, we had our second lowest nonfat export run and the last three years at least. Now there are a lot of reasons for that. We had bird flu in California. We saw the dairy products report we made less nonfat, right. That was less nonfat or skim to export. At the same point in time, we saw our inventories go up right.

00;08;45;29 – 00;09;05;19

And you say, well, why is that? And I think it’s very much we lost exports, right? We were priced out of the export market. And I think that we can see it now in the export side of things. You can make the argument that says, well, that’s fine because we didn’t really have anything to export. However, if California behaves like every other state has, milk production is likely to come back.

00;09;05;19 – 00;09;22;03

And as it comes back, there’s going to be more nonfat that has to be manufactured, and then that nonfat is going to have to more than likely be exported. I just want to bring that up from the standpoint that currently the export market stands between 114 and 122.

00;09;22;06 – 00;09;29;18

Yeah. Like you mentioned that milk production is going to come back. It might not be for the month of December, the month of January, but sooner or later the production is coming back.

00;09;29;19 – 00;09;48;12

Production is coming back. And I just don’t know how to predict that. I recognize that milk is tight in California right now. I recognize that nonfat is tight in California. There is no doubt about that. And again, you can say, doesn’t matter that we didn’t get the exports because we didn’t have the nonfat to export. However, I just can’t take my eye off the ball as saying every other state has rebounded.

00;09;48;12 – 00;10;01;22

You know, when they come back, it comes back with quite a bit of milk. And in California, I think it’s going to result in more nonfat production or nonfat production needs to be exported. And I think that means that the price at this point in time, the price is going to have to come down. Maybe in the next few months.

00;10;01;22 – 00;10;17;27

The international markets strengthen and provide us the ability, you know, to export at the current prices. But my guess is, is that we’re going to see the U.S. price go down. And I think when we look at the nonfat futures, they’re kind of meeting us half way, right. They’re saying, yeah, we’re going to go down, but we’re not going to go all the way down to those prices.

00;10;17;27 – 00;10;25;28

They’re certainly discount to the current spot market, but also higher than the rest of the world, especially on this first and second quarter.

00;10;26;00 – 00;10;44;23

Awesome. Well, John, I appreciate the deep dive into the first GDP of 2025. And our next one is going to be two weeks from now on the 21st, we should be back in our two week rotation for a little bit of time here. Then we kind of jump in the first week of February. So with that, we appreciate everyone tuning in and listening.

00;10;44;23 – 00;10;55;02

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, please let us know. We’d love to address them. As far as the auction, but until next time John. Again, thank you’ve been on everyone. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you later.

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd

Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29

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© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

This episode is also available on the following
platforms:

-Apple Podcasts-

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—–Spotify—–

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post GDT Review with Jon Spainhour – January 07, 2025 appeared first on .

View the video version of this episode here.

In The Grain Feed, Jim Matthews is joined by a rotating cast of analysts to discuss what dairy and livestock producers can be doing to manage their risk. This week, Jim is joined by Jake Kingsley and Cody Koster.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2024, confidential and proprietary.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post The Grain Feed – January 2, 2025 (Audio Only) appeared first on .

View the video version of this episode here.

In The Grain Feed, Jim Matthews is joined by a rotating cast of analysts to discuss what dairy and livestock producers can be doing to manage their risk. This week, Jim is joined by Jake Kingsley and Katie Burgess.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2024, confidential and proprietary.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post The Grain Feed – December 19, 2024 (Audio Only) appeared first on .

In the latest Parlor to Plate dairy podcast from Ever.Ag Insights, our all-star panel digs into the “nice and naughty” market trends shaping the close of 2024. How have rising cheese exports and lower feed costs impacted dairy producers this year? What challenges lie ahead with volatile whey prices, tight heifer supplies, and ongoing impacts of avian influenza on milk production? And what are the big questions for 2025, including new cheese processing capacity and export competitiveness?

Join host Katie Burgess with panelists Brian Fletcher, Ryan Yonkman, and Natalie McCarty for a lively discussion.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

(Transcript auto-generated)

Future trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided in this segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities.

00;00;08;28 – 00;00;32;13

Hello and welcome to Parlor to plate, a weekly podcast from ever again sites dedicated to offering listeners enlightening discussion and actionable dairy market intelligence. I’m your host, Katie Burgess. We’re excited to have you along. If you enjoy the show, please like it. Subscribe and tell a friend or two. First, let’s timestamp the episode. It is 10 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday, December 18th, and here’s your rundown of CME spot markets over the past week.

00;00;32;13 – 00;00;54;10

Yesterday, black cheddar close at 186 per pound. That’s up $0.13 from last week and the highest price in more than a month. Barrels also higher, finishing at one 7850 up $0.10 from a week ago. Butter is at 252 per pound, down a penny, and nonfat dry milk is holding at 138 per pound. Turning to the grain market today, March corn is at 442 per bushel.

00;00;54;12 – 00;01;18;16

That’s down $0.06 from a week ago. While soybeans are at the lowest level we’ve seen in quite a while. January soybeans at 956 per bushel. That’s up $0.39 from a week ago. So let’s get to the show. I am excited today to be joined by some of my nicest colleagues. We’ve got Brian Fletcher coming to us from Chicago, Ryan Jackman also from the Chicago area, and Natalie McCarty out in California.

00;01;18;21 – 00;01;21;04

How are you guys doing today? Looking forward to Christmas.

00;01;21;07 – 00;01;21;29

Oh ho ho.

00;01;22;02 – 00;01;24;03

Nothing like a Santa Claus rally.

00;01;24;05 – 00;01;42;21

I agree. That’s right. The excitement has been building in the markets. Here we are Wednesday morning reporting. We’ve got one week from today. We’ll all be gathered around the Christmas tree, probably knee deep and wrapping paper by that time. So as we think about wrapping up the year, how have things played out here over the course of 2024?

00;01;42;22 – 00;01;58;09

The team today is rounded up some of the nice and naughty factors that we’ve seen across the dairy and grain markets here over the past year, and I’d say we’ve had our handful of both, definitely some very nice things that have happened in the markets in 2024. What do you have? Those markets have also gotten up to some ish yet.

00;01;58;09 – 00;02;15;16

So what to call out? What we see as some of those big factor is heading into your end. Before we jump into it though, we will say that we know we have listeners all across the dairy spectrum in market as some people like low prices, others like high prices. So as we walk through today, we’ll talk about it from either a buyer or seller perspective.

00;02;15;16 – 00;02;26;00

But know that, you know, in these markets we have people who sit on all sides. So kicking things off, Brian, I know you work with dairymen each and every day. What was one of the nicest things they saw this year?

00;02;26;01 – 00;02;43;01

Yeah, I think from a holistic standpoint, for the most part we’re going to say aren’t farm margins. We’re in the nice category. We know the first half started a little rough, but we certainly ended the year pretty strong. And so we can say on fine margins with good milk prices, cheaper feed finally, and certainly some version of record high cattle prices.

00;02;43;01 – 00;02;44;12

What’s that in the nice camp.

00;02;44;17 – 00;03;02;14

Oh for sure. I mean, this year it didn’t necessarily start off so nice, especially if you were in cheese territory. But as the year continued, those higher prices are sure a big benefit to the dairy producers out there. How about you, Fletch? I know you’re working with commercial customers on the buy and the sell side. What’s one of the biggest nice things you saw here in 2020 for.

00;03;02;15 – 00;03;27;28

2024? I think we’ll look back at this year and say it is officially the banner year for cheese exports. All year long we’ve been exporting at a record setting pace and that’s been fantastic. So within that, it’s definitely a highlight. What’s really interesting about that, though, is actually this week for the first time, the US is no longer the clear cut low price around the world.

00;03;27;28 – 00;03;50;20

So we’ve had a really good year for 2024. And I think with the amount of new processing capacity coming online, looking at the domestic demand growth environment, we’re going to need to continue to build on the record setting pace that we’ve had in 2020 for moving forward. So it’s been really good, but looking forward, it’s going to be a little bit more challenging, at least.

00;03;50;20 – 00;04;18;16

To get new exports on the books doesn’t mean some are already on the books. It just means like getting new deals done is going to be a little bit more challenging. What the EU market in the low one 80s for mozzarella cheese. Our block market is in the mid one 80s. So on a spot price and forward price, you can find cheaper sources of product on the global market right now, which I would say without some big changes down the road could be a little problematic for the US market.

00;04;18;16 – 00;04;22;15

But for now, let’s celebrate a banner export year for 2020.

00;04;22;15 – 00;04;38;26

Four for sure. And I think that is the question on everyone’s mind for 2025, as we’ve had a good window here to get some sales booked. But you know, how much was it and is it going to be enough given the new cheese capacity coming online. So we’ll see what 2025 brings for the cheese export market. And Natalie, how about you?

00;04;38;26 – 00;04;43;13

It feels like an easy one over on the food side. Lots of nice lower prices here. This year.

00;04;43;16 – 00;05;14;26

Absolutely. Ryan touched on that. I think if I had to categorize it in the nicest thing in the market, the feed market would be soy meal prices. That influences your canola prices and also your soy meal and your bypass proteins. That is down 32% this year alone versus last year. Switching over to you know, I know people aren’t going to necessarily think this is the case, but what I would maybe call a naughty kind of a mixed, actually, but a naughty at the moment is corn prices.

00;05;14;26 – 00;05;36;11

The USDA did come out with a report last week. They reduced the U.S. ending stocks. And conversely, that has put a floor underneath pricing at the moment. So we’re really only down about 3% versus last year. I’m going to also talk a little bit about the fact that even though that’s a little bit of a naughty, it’s not as good as it was.

00;05;36;12 – 00;05;46;13

We also, though, need to be reminded that we’re down 16% versus a five year average. So still great, great prices and things that need to be taken advantage.

00;05;46;13 – 00;05;55;12

Of for sure. To your point, we’re not as low as we were. It’s still not bad relative to the long run of history, but not quite as sweet as we see on the protein side.

00;05;55;12 – 00;06;00;24

Absolutely. And I think it’s a good reminder that managing risk is very, very important for sure.

00;06;00;24 – 00;06;17;17

I think that is key across all these markets as we head into potentially what could be a volatile 2025. I guess from there, we think about some volatility in the markets that might have been I don’t know if we’ll call a naughty, but we’ll say up to some mischief what the way market has been on quite the run here.

00;06;17;18 – 00;06;19;25

How would you categorize that one for 2024.

00;06;20;00 – 00;06;45;27

That one in terms of a demand highlight? I think it absolutely has been a shining star. We’ve heard, especially once you get into the higher protein ways, whether it’s 80 or isolate, it feels like that market in general has expanded. So what’s been really interesting recently is the driveway price, which tends to be the input cost to making the higher end proteins.

00;06;45;27 – 00;07;20;19

That’s really done a number in terms of catching up on a multiple basis, catching up to the pricing. So what’s been interesting recently is we’ve really heard that the rising driveway costs relative to the equity prices has now encroached on the margin potential for the manufacturers. So it’s been interesting with the driveway market moving all the way up to the I-70 since area, we’ve heard in some cases that it’s not a clear cut decision to be making the higher end proteins, and it doesn’t mean that the higher end proteins can’t make a leg higher.

00;07;20;19 – 00;07;45;01

It just means that the current situation we’re in is it’s not a no brainer to be making that. So we’ll see how we go into 2025, see if the momentum continues. If not, it almost feels like we’re at the first layer of resistance that we’ve had in the market in, let’s just say, all year long. But overall, in terms of dairy demand, the higher end protein category has been exceptional all year long, for sure.

00;07;45;01 – 00;08;02;00

I think that definitely goes on the nice list in terms of dairy demand, higher prices as way impacts class three values. Just a challenge. If you’re a buyer out there to get that product as you see those prices going up and up. But to your point, 2025 is a new year. We’ll have some new capacity and we’ll see how it all evens out for us.

00;08;02;01 – 00;08;18;17

Yeah, I will see a history suggest that this price point, there isn’t much time that we spend up here. You never know what the future brings. But what tends to happen is we run into a brick wall right now, at least on the higher end protein that we just haven’t heard of that pushback yet. So we shall see.

00;08;18;17 – 00;08;25;24

But watching carefully to see when it comes south for sure. Brian, how about you? Any naughty factor this year on the dairy producer side of things?

00;08;25;24 – 00;08;43;15

Yeah, I mean, I guess I’ll take the obvious, right? Not certainly avian, which you can strip out in regards to what it meant to markets. Right. Anybody certainly having to deal with that throughout this year. And by no means is it done. We’re all still very aware of this actively moving throughout the United States. It’s naughty right. It’s been a problem.

00;08;43;15 – 00;08;52;18

It’s not been fun. And that’s going to live in that camp till we figure out how to treat it or gain immunities or whatever that might be. That is yet to be figured out just yet, for sure.

00;08;52;18 – 00;09;12;01

And I mean, just as the update that we’ve had the past few weeks, we continue to see cases in California and we do get a milk production report tomorrow, December 19th. So it’ll give us a fresh look of, hey, how much of an impact did avian influenza have in California during the month of November? Contacts out there suggests that it was probably a little worse than we had seen the month prior.

00;09;12;01 – 00;09;26;17

But I guess, you know, as we look towards 2025, at least for California dairy producers, now that this is a great target. But so many of them have had it at this point. And so hopefully those case numbers will start to slow out there. But then, of course, you know, there are some areas of the country that haven’t had it yet.

00;09;26;17 – 00;09;32;03

So I think it’s going to remain a big watch factor of what happens with milk supply as we make our way into 2025.

00;09;32;06 – 00;09;50;15

Yeah. And it’s still laid up against you know, you could call this a naughty nice list all on its own in regards to the cattle market. We know our heifer replacements are still very tight. We could call that nice. And hey, that’s not going to allow us to turn the spigot on any major way. But it’s also creating problems for dairies that have to backfill dealing with avian.

00;09;50;15 – 00;10;04;25

And we know heifer prices are extremely high. Not really any writing on the wall that says that should change when you consider the supply environment we’ve got. So yes, it is a watch factor. The heifer replacement market will continue to be a watch factor as we go into next year.

00;10;05;01 – 00;10;21;28

Well, on that note, there’s plenty of stuff for all of us to keep an eye on as we head into the new year. But thanks so much for joining me today. Brian, Brian and Natalie appreciated your comments, and there’s fun running down the list with you, as there have been a lot of different things happening in the markets here in 2024.

00;10;21;29 – 00;10;44;08

Also, big thanks to our listeners. We really appreciate your support and a big thanks to the other insights production team. If you like the show, please hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And just to note that we’ll be taking a break next week for the holidays, but we’ll be back with fresh new episodes in 2025. We appreciate everything you do, and if you’d like to learn more about everything, please contact us at [email protected].

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd

Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29

License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod

© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

The post Parlor to Plate – December 18, 2024 appeared first on .

Guest host Brian Fletcher and Jon Spainhour take a deep dive into this week’s GDT report.

Questions or comments? Contact Jon at [email protected], Cody at [email protected], or give us a call at (312) 492-4200.

(Transcript auto-generated)

Future trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided in this segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities.

00;00;08;19 – 00;00;23;05

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Get Tuesday. I am your host today. This is Bryan Fletcher filling in for Cody with me as always from Chicago is Mr. John Spain. How’re John, how are you doing today?

00;00;23;05 – 00;00;25;13

You doing well, Brian. And happy to be here. Awesome.

00;00;25;13 – 00;00;30;21

Are you a little sad? The today is the last GDP event of 2024.

00;00;30;27 – 00;00;43;28

I shed a little tear over that fact, but as you stated, this is the last event of the year. Our next one will be on January 7th, so we have a three week break between now and the next auction.

00;00;43;28 – 00;00;55;16

So not only the last one of this year, but one of the longer stretches in between. It’s going to be tough. Well, today we had a lower aggregate result. What were your key highlights with today’s auction?

00;00;55;16 – 00;01;24;21

Yeah. So if we look at the average calculation on the weighted average price, we’d say that today’s auction and total was down about 1.1% versus the last auction. Let’s start with the products that did the best cheddar cheese came in at 0.1% lower, and that’s going to put the New Zealand cheddar price at about 212. If we moved to mozzarella, that was down 2.1% at 183.

00;01;24;21 – 00;02;02;21

So well prices down slightly, but butter as well was down 0.7% on an 82% fat. Adjusted New Zealand butter is going to come in around 301. AMF, however, was the biggest loser of the day. It came in 4.2% lower at about 330 a pound, up 2%. Fat adjusted basis. When we look at some of the more actively traded products on the exchange and most heavily weighted, let’s go to a whole milk powder that was down 2.4%, came in about 176 for 3890 on a dollars per metric ton.

00;02;02;21 – 00;02;24;26

If we look at where whole milk powder futures were trading prior to this, they were actually trading a little bit lower than that. So here in the last couple days or so, powder futures have really taken a nosedive. And we’re projecting not only was the auction for home on powder going to go lower, but they projected they were going to go lower than we actually went.

00;02;24;27 – 00;02;47;28

As we go over to skim milk powder, this is where things become interesting. We came in 3.2% lower at an average price of about 125. If we look at that came in at $2,757 per metric ton. The futures for skim milk powder were actually quite a bit higher than that. So they were off their highs. And you know, where have been moving lower in the last couple days.

00;02;47;28 – 00;03;06;18

But when you look at where we actually settled, even though we settled 3.2% lower, appears to be a lot lower than where the S&P futures were projecting. We were going to come in at. And if we just look at it where some of this comes in, we haven’t been this low on the futures since the beginning of October.

00;03;06;21 – 00;03;28;17

And when we go to look at history, price action on the GDP, we would say that we haven’t seen some of these prices on skim this low since mid of October as well. So quite a change there in the skim milk powder price, specifically when we compare it to expectations of the futures price.

00;03;28;23 – 00;03;43;14

If we can focus on some relative values within the result, specifically starting with skim milk powder, did you notice any geographic differences based upon the origin of the product that came in via skim milk powder today?

00;03;43;14 – 00;04;03;07

I don’t know. In terms of origins of the product, I don’t think we saw anything come out of North America, and that shouldn’t be out of expectations simply because we’re so much higher. I mean, I see European prices up there when we go to individual sellers. It doesn’t seem that anybody sticks out to the best of my knowledge.

00;04;03;07 – 00;04;23;03

And most of those European prices look in line. I think the European prices, like from Arla, the Arla prices that were on there, those kind of suggest that the European price was quite a bit lower than the New Zealand price. And we’ve kind of seen that over the course of the last few weeks in here, Brian, we’ve seen European prices drifting lower.

00;04;23;03 – 00;04;40;09

We’ve seen it on the European futures. And that’s also resulted in New Zealand prices moving lower as well. But I would say European prices on the auction look like they were about 119. And if we compare that again to the GTI, we’d say about 125 for New Zealand prices.

00;04;40;11 – 00;04;53;21

All right. So it’s kind of carrying the general if we’re looking forward curves around the globe, that’s in line with where we’re seeing European pricing US and New Zealand. So kind of withholding that current trend.

00;04;53;24 – 00;05;04;07

Yes, we would say Europe is the cheapest then New Zealand. And then finally the US price has generally been higher than the rest of the world on a spot Am futures basis.

00;05;04;12 – 00;05;12;25

Within the breakdown of who was buying off of GDP today, was there any big change versus recent trends at all?

00;05;12;27 – 00;05;37;17

Yeah, I would say China. We look at I just pulled out the last auction. China represented 51% of the GDP share a volume by region on the last auction. When we come to two days, they only represented 38%. So we did see China step back. And they had been so aggressive. And it really had taken on a lot, at least on the GDP side on this auction.

00;05;37;19 – 00;05;59;25

They were still very much there, just quite a bit less than the last auction. When we look at Southeast Asia, right on the last one, they were 24% of the volume, and on this one they were 33. So China, step back there, the 800 pound gorilla in the room. That is more than likely what allowed the a bit of a release valve on prices and let prices move lower.

00;05;59;25 – 00;06;26;21

But yeah, we did see Southeast Asia step in and take up some product. I would note as well that this auction had 4% less volume on it than the prior auction, and the prior auction had 7% less volume. So we’re through the high season of offers, if you will, on the GDP in terms of volume. So we should be expecting to see less and less volume on each progressive auction as we go down the line.

00;06;26;21 – 00;06;52;09

So we want to keep that in mind that we’re probably going to be seeing less volume, and that’s going to really magnify the effect of if China comes in here and is relatively aggressive, there’s less volume for them to suck up. And that can really push prices higher at the same point in time, if they remain kind of on the back burner, which it looks like they were here, that can really allow prices to move lower as we go into this lower volume season.

00;06;52;16 – 00;07;16;18

Thank you. Can we shift focus to mozzarella cheese for a moment. But just looking at it really quickly, you mentioned it was down about 2%. Puts it in the and EU origin product each right around that 182 to 183 area. And then just looking at US markets we’ve moved the complete opposite direction. And now in basically every instance are now higher.

00;07;16;18 – 00;07;25;18

So just curious what you’re observing in the cheese space specifically mozzarella and what this can mean in terms of U.S. export competitiveness.

00;07;25;23 – 00;07;46;18

Oh I know it’s great that you brought that up, Brian. We’ve talked about it so many times before, not only on this podcast, but in our general day to day conversation. And, you know, we export a lot of cheese. We need to continue to export a lot of cheese. And generally the format that we export is mozzarella. Our main competitors are going to be New Zealand and they’re going to be Europe.

00;07;46;18 – 00;08;07;04

And you would say that, you know, Europe has been so much higher than the rest of the world, specifically the US for so long, that we should be getting some exports. It’s very possible that we did get some exports before this happened. But as you pointed out, we’ve seen a ramp up in U.S prices. Black cheese now at 186.

00;08;07;04 – 00;08;30;17

If we look at the futures, futures out there for Feb and March are at 185. Right. And as you pointed out here, this mozzarella prices. What do we translate. This price at 185. So here we are with the US spot price about the same as the rest of the world. Again, I can’t necessarily speak for what product was exported or contracted for this rally.

00;08;30;17 – 00;08;48;01

One might be able to say that we got some exports off at the expense of Europe and New Zealand, and that’s why we rallied in New Zealand and Europe came down. That’s a possibility. I guess we always have to keep the door open. We just don’t know what was contracted. But my sense of things was it’s not enormous.

00;08;48;01 – 00;09;12;18

And when we look at the amount of cheese capacity that we have coming online here in the US, as well as the milk production, I feel at least that we’re going to have a lot of cheese, and one of those plants is going to be a large scale mozzarella plant. I guess knowing that our US price is now higher or at par with the rest of the world has me concerned about the ongoing viability of exports.

00;09;12;23 – 00;09;35;29

All right. Yeah, it’s been a pretty quiet, about a month long stretch of some pretty severe convergence between the US moving up, Europe moving down. A GDP price is coming down as well. So it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out going into the new year. Within that. John, do you have any other closing thoughts or expectations as we move ahead into the New year in regards to GDP?

00;09;36;04 – 00;09;59;01

Oh, it’s just been an interesting year, and I would just say we came into the year with China largely absent. We got into the middle of the year with China coming back, and here we are with them stepping off and it feels like prices are moving lower. Yes. I just look at it to say China is still an important player on the world stage and they at times can really set the tone for international dairy prices.

00;09;59;01 – 00;10;18;06

At the same point in time, I feel as if 2024 was characterized by a year of less milk in general and not more. And at least here in the US, as we march into 2025, it feels like we might be up against more milk here in the US. And it’s yet to be determined in Europe what that’s going to look like.

00;10;18;06 – 00;10;27;25

But I have to imagine somewhere along the line we’re going to see more milk out of Europe as well. And so I’m curious to see what 2025 looks like in that environment.

00;10;27;28 – 00;10;51;17

Well, thank you as always, John, for all of your insights and analysis here. And that will do it for another GDP podcast. Cody, we’ll be ready to get you back in action into 2025. And we all want to thank our listeners for tuning in. So thank you very much. We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a wonderful start to 2025, and we’ll see you again in a few weeks.

00;10;51;18 – 00;10;55;07

After a three week hiatus of GDT. Thank you very much.

The following music was used for this media project:

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© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

This episode is also available on the following
platforms:

-Apple Podcasts-

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—–Spotify—–

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post GDT Review with Jon Spainhour – December 17, 2024 appeared first on .

View the video version of this episode here.

In this episode of The Grain Feed, guest host Jake Kingsley is joined by Natalie McCarty to discuss what dairy and livestock producers can be doing to manage their risk.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2024, confidential and proprietary.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post The Grain Feed – December 12, 2024 (Audio Only) appeared first on .

In the latest Parlor to Plate dairy podcast from Ever.Ag Insights, our all-star panel breaks down new USDA data. How did US dairy trade fare in October? Did the latest Dairy Products report hold any surprises? And what revisions did the latest WASDE hold for the US corn balance sheet?

Join host Katie Burgess and panelists Kevin Peterson, Colin Kadis and Natalie McCarty for a spirited discussion.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

(Transcript auto-generated)

00;00;00;10 – 00;00;03;18

Future trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided.

00;00;03;18 – 00;00;05;20

In this segment is meant for educational purposes.

00;00;05;20 – 00;00;26;17

And is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities. Hello and welcome to Parler to play a weekly podcast from ever again. Sites dedicated to offering listeners enlightening discussion and actionable dairy market intelligence. I’m your host, Katie Burgess. Coming to you from a snowy Madison, Wisconsin. We’re excited to have you on today. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and tell a friend or two.

00;00;26;18 – 00;00;51;00

First, let’s timestamp the episode. It is 1030 Central Time on Wednesday, December 11th, and for a rundown of the steamy spot market yesterday, Black Cheddar closed at 173 per pound. That is up $0.06 from a week ago. Barrels finished at one 68.75, up $0.04. Butter is at 253 per pound, up three quarters of a cent from a week ago, and nonfat dry milk is at one 3825.

00;00;51;01 – 00;01;09;22

Also up three quarters of a cent. Turning to the grain markets, March corn is all the way up to 450 per bushel today. That’s up $0.20 from last week and January. Soybeans are 9.99 at $0.16 from a week ago. So let’s get to the show. Got another great crew joining me today. First Mr. Kevin Peterson joining us from Chicago.

00;01;09;23 – 00;01;36;17

He works with commercial dairy customers. We’ve got Colin Cardus joining us from the Pacific Northwest, where he works with dairy producers, and now McCarty from California, where she’s keeping a close eye on the feed market. How is everyone doing today? Great. Great. All right. Tim, well, we’ve had a few new reports over the past week. I wouldn’t say any big market movers in the dairy space, but like I mentioned in the rundown, corn did get a little bit of a pop yesterday coming out of the report.

00;01;36;18 – 00;01;39;24

Natalie, let’s start with you. What were the big takeaways from that report.

00;01;39;24 – 00;02;04;28

Was that they lowered corn, ending stocks quite a bit actually. It went from 1.938 in the November report down to 1.738 billion bushels. They adjusted the export number by 150. That was the big move that caused those reductions and then also increased ethanol use as well. As far as the soybean balance sheet, not a lot of changes there at all.

00;02;05;00 – 00;02;17;22

Some changes in the world numbers, but overall the U.S. kind of stayed steady. Same thing on the weeks we saw some slight changes in the U.S. with ending stocks down slightly, but world and U.S. stocks remain robust.

00;02;17;28 – 00;02;37;01

I know it definitely caught my eye this morning to see that. 450 trading from a march corn perspective. When I look at the chart. That’s the highest we’ve been dating back to a day or two in early October. From a feed team perspective, you know, did this report give us momentum to move even higher here or what are we thinking for prices now following this report?

00;02;37;02 – 00;02;38;03

I think the key.

00;02;38;03 – 00;02;59;10

Is going to be to see we’re right up against the 200 day moving average, which is right around 452. Key will be to hold that and not move above it. I think for the most part, this report was anticipated. We expected eventually we were going to go back to a 1.7 ending stock. It was interesting that the USDA did it in one fell swoop.

00;02;59;10 – 00;03;21;26

I think the other thing that’s really interesting is, like I said, most of the corn reduction was in exports. And right now Trump has indicated that he’ll do a 25% tariff on day one of our largest trade partner, which is Mexico, on the corn side. So even though exports are robust right now, I think there’s still some questions on is it front loaded at this point.

00;03;21;26 – 00;03;41;01

So I think largely expected we’ve really got to watch that 200 day moving average. And if it pops above. The other thing I think that’s interesting is we’ve seen the carry come out of the market. So you know, January, February, March now all is pretty flat. And also basis is come down to offset some of these pricing crises we’ve seen.

00;03;41;01 – 00;03;44;22

So a net effect it hasn’t been as large as just the futures move.

00;03;44;29 – 00;04;03;11

Know for sure. And I think that you know that becomes a big part of what we’re watching in 2025 from a policy perspective. If we do tariffs or if we don’t have tariffs, it paints two really different pictures for demand. And I guess speaking of trade and exports, Colin, there was new trade data from USDA last week as well.

00;04;03;12 – 00;04;06;00

Can you give us the rundown of what it showed on the dairy front?

00;04;06;04 – 00;04;24;03

Yeah, Katie, I think it was pretty exciting from well, I guess the process or point of view in terms of we got a lot of product out of the country, but then the producer point of view as well, in terms of getting products out of the country, is usually price supported. I mean, cheese, even though we saw extremely higher prices in October, we still saw a 12% gain versus the prior October.

00;04;24;03 – 00;04;41;22

A lot of familiar faces on the buy side. You know, Mexico bought 27% more than the previous year, but also encouraging to see places like South Korea, who bought 11% more than the previous year. You know, generally when we see a place like South Korea, it’s not on a short term spot export kind of thing than the longer term deal, which is encouraging.

00;04;41;22 – 00;04;59;03

We’ll need those longer term deals to kind of keep prices higher. I think you pointed out to me, Katie, which is really interesting, but we had our largest import export gap since 1995 on butter. We actually dropped 14 million pounds and it was Ireland that picked it up. Basically, they doubled the volume that they imported to the United States from last year.

00;04;59;03 – 00;05;14;17

And then, you know, we’ve seen where prices kind of perk up here a little bit as we get to the end of the year. And I think it makes sense just looking at what we did for October, we actually exported 25% more than we did in the previous year, and a lot of that went to China, about 9 million pounds of 17 total.

00;05;14;17 – 00;05;19;14

So encouraging to see China back in the mix and encouraging for the class three complex for sure.

00;05;19;14 – 00;05;41;22

And I think that one of the big things as we head into 2025 is it’s good to see that from a cheese export perspective. We’re on pace for a record 2024 in terms of cheese exports. And from a price perspective, right now we’re fairly globally competitive, but we’re going to need to continue to see big numbers on the export front just to help keep this market cleaned up as more cheese processing capacity comes online, too.

00;05;41;22 – 00;05;57;18

So hopefully, you know, this latest report data that’s a couple months old at this point. But at least an encouraging sign that we’re continuing to win the business. And hopefully that continues for the US dairy markets. One other report that we got last week was the Dairy Products report. Kevin, can you give us a rundown of the highlights from that one?

00;05;57;19 – 00;06;23;14

Yeah, absolutely. We’re so far into the year now. This is one I personally like to start scrolling down a little more on that dairy products report and not focusing so much so on just this month versus last year. But the cumulative stats I find more interesting right now for 2024 versus 2023. So really a lot of the same story that we have been seeing, you know, you have cheddar cheese in total down 6.2%, 2024 2023.

00;06;23;14 – 00;06;43;22

And that’s over 100 million pounds less that we’ve made. And you know, again, as we’ve been talking about it, but it’s really shifting into markets where we’re up more than call it 150 million pounds year over year, up 4% there. So that continues to me to be an interesting trend, just making so much less cheddar and a lot more Mots and other type of Italian cheeses as well.

00;06;43;22 – 00;06;59;04

You know, cold storage came out a few weeks ago as well and showing cheese inventories down 50 million pounds. So part of me is thinking some point I wonder if we’ll start to see some backfill of inventories. And maybe that’s what we’ve been seeing the last two weeks. It kind of put a bottom into this market here on the spot.

00;06;59;04 – 00;07;26;26

And then shifting over into the powders again. Kind of the same story all year, but a lot less nonfat dry milk has been made year over year. We’re down just under 200 million pounds actually in 2024 versus 2023, that’s down 11.6%. You know, similar in dry way, down about 70 million pounds year over year, down 8.7%. So kind of a lot of the commodity type products we’re seeing obviously besides butter we’re making a lot less of it’s going into things like cottage cheese ice creams up.

00;07;26;26 – 00;07;31;23

But to me Cod is interesting in the product shifts of what we’re making this year versus last.

00;07;31;23 – 00;07;45;10

Year, for sure. And when we look at that way number, the way market itself has been on quite the run here spot way up above the 70 cent mark. As you look at the dairy products report, you know, what’s your takeaway from that in terms of where do we go next with this way market?

00;07;45;14 – 00;08;04;13

Yeah, that was going to be a tough one. You know I think here for the time being it’s going to stay probably supported. You know what I look for there is going to be you know obviously demand for whey protein isolates 80s is extremely strong right now. You know when I go into the store it seems protein is kind of everywhere.

00;08;04;13 – 00;08;27;27

And we’re putting protein in a lot of stuff. I mean, I was in Costco I think last week, and you know, now there’s protein pancakes and it’s just seems to be the fad right now. And so what I look to there to maybe turn it around with prices moving lower is just has to be added capacity. And so I guess the thing I look to, to maybe turn the market around is going to be, you know, the added capacity we’ve talked about.

00;08;27;27 – 00;08;46;12

And I think one cheese plant from I understand is making, you know, higher in whey proteins and another that’s coming online is going to be making more of your sweet whey. And so really just in totality, more production capacity and more product coming online I think is what we need. But again, we might not find that in meaningful way until mid year next.

00;08;46;12 – 00;09;02;27

Year for sure. And I mean, I think that we kind of keep coming back to the same theme that you’re in the dairy space. This new cheese processing capacity really remains a big story, whether it’s the impact or potential ramifications of what is trade going to look like, what is the market going to look like? Where’s the milk supply going to go?

00;09;02;27 – 00;09;22;03

All of these pieces that kind of circles back to our product mix is going to change next year. And just figuring out how the market adjusts for that, what it is not next year yet. We’re on a countdown here as we wrap up 2024. We are two weeks away from Christmas, three weeks away from New Year’s Day. It’s a question for all of you today.

00;09;22;03 – 00;09;34;11

What is one thing you think our customer base should be thinking about? Getting wrapped up before we head into the holiday season? So, Colin, I’ll start with you. What’s one thing a dairy producer should be thinking about doing here? Between now and year end?

00;09;34;12 – 00;09;53;00

Well, Katie, we talked about record exports and our insights team tried to answer the question you just asked, which is here with all the new cheese capacity coming, if we have to export it all, will we be able to. And I think the numbers that came back with this, we’re going to have to see on top of this year’s record exports, 25 to 50% growth in cheese exports to keep class three where it is.

00;09;53;00 – 00;10;03;09

So the Q1 drop deadline is this Friday, which is, I believe, the 15th. If you are going to be worried if milk goes below 18 bucks and I would get the coverage on, it’s a good look at the end of the.

00;10;03;09 – 00;10;19;09

Year for sure. I mean, those levels out there are still pretty good. Like you mentioned, sugar prices have been above $18 to get some floors on for next year. The premium costs are now $0.20 or less. So definitely a prudent move for dairy producers to take a look at some more Q1 DRP insurance between now and year end.

00;10;19;10 – 00;10;26;13

Kevin, how about you? I know you work with a lot of commercial dairy buyers. What are you having your customers think about as we head into year end? Yes.

00;10;26;13 – 00;10;52;11

For most of his markets looking out next year, the only thing I can preach is options, options, options. A lot of capacity coming online next year. More looking at a lot of, you know, higher than typical curves out into 2025. And so obviously getting the hedges and coverage that we need. But really trying to steer away from fixed price out there and using options to allow some downside as well next year for sure.

00;10;52;11 – 00;10;56;23

And Natalie, as you’re talking to feed buyers, what is top of mind for them? I think the.

00;10;56;23 – 00;11;18;27

Thing that I would say is lock in margin feed prices, even though we have seen a blip up, they are still at historic lows and the Careys have eroded. So one of the other things were working with the buyers on is taking a look at that 2526 market and possibly using option strategies to set some tops there as well.

00;11;18;27 – 00;11;32;13

For sure, I like it giving a Christmas present to yourself of some more financial stability in 2025, and for dairy producers, opportunities to lock in good margins on both the milk and the feed side of things, that seems like a great way to kick off the new year.

00;11;32;13 – 00;11;33;12

Absolutely.

00;11;33;12 – 00;11;56;02

That’s a wrap for today’s show. A big thanks to our panelists, Kevin, Colin and Natalie appreciated you joining me today. Also, a big thanks to the other Egg Insights team for your production support. And to you, our listeners, we appreciate you tuning in. You like the show? Please hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app and if you’d like to learn more about how we help customers manage risk, please contact us at insights at ever.ag.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The following music was used for this media project:

Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd

Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29

License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod

© Ever.Ag 2023, confidential and proprietary.

The post Parlor to Plate – December 11, 2024 appeared first on .

View the video version of this episode here.

In The Grain Feed, Jim Matthews is joined by a rotating cast of analysts to discuss what dairy and livestock producers can be doing to manage their risk. This week, Jim is joined by Jake Kingsley and Dr. Daniel Quinn, Assistant Professor of Agronomy, Extension Corn Specialist with Purdue University.

Questions or comments? Topics you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact us at [email protected].

The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Funky Intro 29 by TaigaSoundProd
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9520-funky-intro-29
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod
© Ever.Ag 2024, confidential and proprietary.

Disclaimer: TRADING FUTURES AND OPTIONS ON FUTURES INVOLVES SIGNIFICANT RISK OF LOSS AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERYONE. THEREFORE, CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION. PAST RESULTS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. THE INFORMATION AND COMMENTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE PROVIDED BY EVER.AG AS GENERAL COMMENTARY OF MARKET CONDITIONS. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS TRADING ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATION WITHOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION WITH YOUR EVER.AG ADVISOR. THIS IS A MATTER OF SOLICITATION.

The post The Grain Feed – December 5, 2024 (Audio Only) appeared first on .